This invention concerns drying apparatus, and more particularly, a dryer of the type which employs vibratory motion for conveying the items to be dried.
A common type of industrial dryer employs a porous screen conveyor to carry small parts past a drying station where hot air is blown through the porous screen. In such dryers, vibratory energy is often used to tumble the parts on the conveyor.
Another type of dryer, exemplified by the common home laundry dryer, also utilizes a tumbling motion to achieve more efficient drying. There the tumbling is achieved by rotating a perforated drum about a horizontal axis, and the drying section is achieved by passing hot air through the perforations in the drum. Both these types or dryers can cause difficulties when small mechanical parts or bulk materials are to be dried, because the parts can sometimes tumble into attitudes which cause various projections to become caught or fall through the perforations of the conveyor screen or drum. Dryers with unperforated belt conveyors avoid this problem, but they do not have any means for fully exposing the parts; therefore, it takes longer for the hidden surfaces of the parts to dry. Dryers with worm-type tumbling systems are also fairly slow.